MASTER 
NEGA  TIVE 

NO .  92  -80842 


MICROFILMED  1992 
COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES/NEW  YORK 


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AUTHOR: 


ARNOLD,  EDWIN 


TITLE: 


DE 


TH-AND 


AFTERWARDS 


PLACE: 


NEW  YORK 


DA  TE : 


1897 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 
PRESERVATION  DEPARTMENT 


Master  Negative  # 


BIBLIOGRAPHIC  MICROFORM  TARGET 


Original  Material  as  Filmed  -  Existing  Bibliographic  Record 


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Arnold,  Sir  Edwin,  1832-1904. 

Death— and  afterwards,  by  Sir  Edwin  Arnold  ...  with  a 
supplement.^  Reprinted  by  authority  from  the  14th  English 
ed.     New  York,  New  Amsterdam  book  company,  1897. 

05  p.    front,  (mounted  port.)     19^"°. 


Restrictions  on  Use: 


1.  Death.     2.  linniortality.        i.  Title. 


Library  of  C<)n;?res.s 


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32-5792 


BT021.A85     1897 


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HLMEDBY:    RESEARCH  PUBLICATIONS.  INC  WOODBRIDGE.  CT 


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Silver  Spring,  Maryland  20910 

301/587-8202 


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Sir  EDWIN  ARNOLD,  ,m. a.,  k.ci,e;,; 

Author  of  "  The  Light  o/  Asia  " 


3    » 

9 


With  a  Supplement 


REPRINTED  BY  AUTHORITY  FROM  THE   FOURTEENTH 

ENGLISH  EDITION 


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PUBLISHERS  J^Jt  NEW  YORK  Jk  Ji  MDCCCXCVII 


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Aide  Ijuepog  ovk  evd^parog  kTvxdri.'^'' 

/tscH.  Suppl, 


**  Unto  this  day  it  doth  my  herte  boote 
That  I  have  had  my  worlde,  as  in  my  time." 

Chaucer. 


"  Never  the  spirit  was  bom,  the  spirit  will  cease  to  be  never ; 
Never  was  time  it  was  not ;  End  and  Beginning  are  dreams! 
Birthless  and  deathless  and  changeless  remaineth  the  spirit 
for  ever  ; 

Death  hath  not  touched  it  at  all,  dead  though  the  house  of 
it  seems !  '* 

The  Song  Celestial. 


Death — and  Afterwards 


•L 


MAN  is  not  by  any  means  convinced  as 
yet  of  his  immortality.  All  the  great  re- 
ligions have  in  concert,  more  or  less  positively, 
affirmed  it  to  him ;  but  no  safe  logic  proves  it, 
and  no  entirely  accepted  voice  from  some  farther 
world  proclaims  it.  There  is  a  restless  instinct, 
an  unquenchable  hope,  a  silent  discontent  with 
the  very  best  of  transitory  pleasures,  which  per- 
petually disturb  his  scepticism  or  shake  his 
resignation ;  but  only  a  few  feel  quite  certain 
that  they  will  never  cease  to  exist.  The  vast 
majority  either  put  the  question  aside,  being 
absorbed  in  the  pursuits  of  life ;  or  grow  weary 


t 


Death- 


and    Afterwards. 


of  meditating  it  without  result;  or  incline  to 
think,  not  without  melancholy  satisfaction,  that 
the  death  of  the  body  brings  an  end  to  the 
individual.  Of  these,  the  happiest  and  most 
useful  in  their  generation  are  the  healthy- 
minded  ones  who  are  too  full  of  vigor  or 
too  much  busied  with  pleasure  or  duty,  to 
trouble  themselves  about  death  and  its  eflFects. 
The  most  enviable  are  such  as  find,  or  affect 
to  find,  in  the  authority  or  the  arguments  of 
any  extant  religion,  sufficing  demonstration  of  a 
future  existence.  And  perhaps  the  most  foolish 
are  those  who,  following  ardent  researches  of 
science,  learn  so  little  at  the  knees  of  their 
"star-eyed"  mistress  as  to  believe  those  forces 
which  are  called  intellect,  emotion,  and  will, 
capable  of  extinction,  while  they  discover  and 
declare  the  endless  conservation  of  motion 
and  matter. 

If  we  were  all  sure,   what  a  difference  it 
would    make!      A  simple  *'yes,"  pronounced 


by  the  edict  of  immensely  developed  science; 
one  word  from  the  lips  of  some  clearly  ac- 
credited herald  sent  on  convincing  authority, 
would  turn  nine-tenths  of  the  sorrows  of  earth 
into  glorious  joys,  and  abolish  quite  as  large 
a  proportion  of  the  faults  and  vices  of  man- 
kind. Men  and  women  are  naturally  good; 
it  is  fear,  and  the  feverish  passion  to  get  as 
much  as  possible  out  of  the  brief  span  of  mor- 
tal years,  which  breed  most  human  offences. 
And  many  noble  and  gentle  souls,  which  will 
not  stoop  to  selfish  sins,  even  because  life  is 
short,  live  prisoners,  as  it  were,  in  their  con- 
demned cells  of  earth,  under  what  they  deem 
a  sentence  from  which  there  is  no  appeal, 
waiting  in  sad  but  courageous  incertitude  the 
last  day  of  their  incarceration;  afraid  to  love, 
to  rejoice,  to  labour,  and  to  hope,  lest  love 
shall  end  in  eternal  parting,  gladness  in  cheer- 
less dust,  generous  toils  in  the  irony  of  results 
effaced,   and  hope  itself  in  a  vast  and  scornful 


n 


'M 


} 


<■*'  *%.. 


« 


8 


Death- 


and    Afterwards. 


denial.  What  a  change  if  all  these  could  really 
believe  that  they  are  cherished  guests  in  an 
intermediate  mansion  of  a  benign  universe, 
not  doomed  captives  in  one  of  its  mournful 
dungeons!  How  happy  as  well  as  fair  and 
attractive  this  planet  would  become  if  it  were 
not  a  doctrine,  not  a  theory,  not  a  poetic 
dream,  but  a  fact  seen  and  accepted,  that 
Death  arrives,  not  like  *' Monsieur  de  Paris," 
to  strip  the  criminal,  to  clip  his  collar  and  hair, 
and  lop  away  from  him  life  and  love  and  de- 
light; but  as  a  mother  lulling  her  children  to 
sleep,  so  that  they  may  wake  ready  for  play 
in  the  fresh  morning;  as  the  gentlest  angel  of 
all  the  many  ministers  of  man,  bringing  him  far 
more  than  birth  ever  brought;  and  leading  him 
by  a  path  as  full  of  miracles  of  soft  arrange- 
ment, and  as  delicately  contrived  for  his  bene- 
fit as  is  the  process  of  birth  itself,  to  heights 
of  advanced  existence,  simple,  nevertheless,  in 
their  turn  and  order  as  are  the  first  drops  of  the 


breast-milk  of  his    mother,   and   neither  more 
nor  less  wonderful  I 

There  is  no  new  thing  to  say  hereupon, 
even  if  one  should  personally  and  sincerely 
declare  he  was  quite  sure  he  had  always  ex- 
isted, and  should  never  cease  to  be.  That 
would  be  worth  nothing  philosophically,  nor 
be  rendered  a  whit  more  valuable  even  if  the 
speaker  should  have  studied  all  the  creeds,  and 
mastered  all  the  systems,  and  feel  himself  led  by 
something  beyond  them  to  state  the  assurance 
which  none  of  all  these  can  give,  or  take 
away.  Good-will  may  recommend  a  convic- 
tion, but  cannot  possibly  impart  it.  Yet  there 
are  reflections,  disjoined  from  all  conventional 
assertions  and  religious  dogmas,  which  may 
be  worth  inditing,  rather  as  suggestions  to 
other  minds  than  arguments;  rather  as  indica- 
tions of  fresh  paths  of  thought  than  as  pre- 
suming to  guide  along  them.  And  the  first 
which  occurs  is  to  represent  the  great  mistake 


lO 


Death- 


of  refusing  to  believe  in  the  continuity  of  in- 
dividual life  because  of  the  incomprehensi- 
bility of  it.  Existence  around  us,  illuminated  by 
modern  sciences,  is  full  of  antecedently  in- 
credible occurrences;  one  more  or  less  makes 
no  logical  difference.  There  is  positively  not 
a  single  prodigy  in  the  ancient  religions  but 
has  its  every-day  illustration  in  Nature.  The 
transformations  of  classic  gods  and  goddesses 
are  grossly  commonplace  to  the  magic  of  the 
medusa,  which  is  now  filling  our  summer  seas 
with  floating  bells  of  crystal  and  amethyst. 
Born  from  the  glassy  goblet  of  their  mother, 
the  young  hydrozoon  becomes  first  a  free  germ 
resembling  a  rice  grain ;  next  a  fixed  cup  with 
four  lips;  then  those  lips  turn  to  tentacles,  and 
it  is  a  hyaline  flower;  which  presently  splits 
across  the  calyx  into  segments,  and  the  protean 
thing  has  grown  into  a  pine-cone  crowned 
with  a  tuft  of  transparent  filaments.  The  cone 
changes  into  a  series  of  sea-daisies,   threaded 


and    Afterwards. 


II 


on  a  pearly  stalk;  and  these,  one  by  one, 
break  off  and  float  away,  each  a  perfect  little 
medusa,  with  purple  bell  and  trailing  tentacles. 
What  did  Zeus  or  Hermes  ever  effect  like  that  ? 
Does  anybody  find  the  Doctrine  of  the  Incar- 
nation so  incredible?  The  nearest  rose-bush 
may  rebuke  him,  since  he  will  see  there  the 
aphides,  which  in  their  wingless  state  produce 
without  union  creatures  like  themselves;  and 
these  again,  though  uncoupled,  bring  forth  fresh 
broods,  down  to  the  tenth  or  eleventh  gen- 
eration; when,  on  a  sudden,  winged  males 
and  females  suddenly  result,  and  pair.  Or  is 
the  Buddhist  dogma  of  immortality  in  the  past 
for  every  existent  individual  too  tremendous  a 
demand  ?  The  lowest  living  thing,  the  Prot- 
amoeba,  has  obviously  never  died!  It  is  a 
formless  film  of  protoplasm,  which  multiplies 
by  simple  division;  and  the  specimen  under 
any  modern  microscope  derives,  and  must  de- 
rive,  in  unbroken  existence  from   the  amoeba 


12 


Death- 


and    Afterwards. 


13 


which  moved  and  fed  forty  oeons  ago.  The 
slime  of  our  nearest  puddle  lived  before  the 
Alps  were  made! 

It  is  not,  therefore,  on  account  of  the  in- 
credibility of  a  conscious  life  after  death  that 
sensible  people  should  doubt  it  1  stood  last 
year  in  the  central  aisle  of  the  Health  Exhi- 
bition at  South  Kensington,  and  observed  a 
graceful  English  girl  lost  in  momentary  interest 
over  the  showcase  containing  the  precise  in- 
gredients of  her  fair  and  perfect  frame.  There 
— neatly  measured  out,  labelled,  and  deposited 
in  trays  or  bottles—were  exposed  the  water, 
the  lime,  the  phosphorus,  the  silex,  the  iron, 
and  other  various  elements,  perversely  styled 
*'clay,"  which  go  to  the  building  up  of  our 
houses  of  flesh  and  bone.  As  I  watched  her 
half-amused,  half-pensive  countenance,  the  verse 
came  to  mind,  '*Why  should  it  seem  to  you 
a  wonderful  thing,  though  one  rose  from  the 
dead?"    Minerals  and  gases  have,  so  science 


opines,  a  kind  of  atomic  and  ethereal  life  in 
their  particles,  and  if  we  could  only  imagine 
them  conversing  elementally,  how  sceptical  they 
would  be  that  any  power  could  put  them  to- 
gether in  the  coarse  ingredients  of  that  glass 
case,  so  as  to  form  by  delicate  chemistry  of 
Nature  the  youthful  beauty,  the  joyous  health, 
the  exquisite  capacities,  and  the  involved  human 
life  of  the  bright  maiden  who  contemplated 
with  unconvinced  smiles  those  alleged  materials 
of  her  being!  But  if,  passing  behind  such  an 
every-day  analysis  of  the  laboratory,  science 
had  dared  to  speak  to  her  of  the  deeper  secrets 
in  Nature  which  she  herself  embodied  and 
enshrined — without  the  slightest  consciousness 
or  comprehension  on  her  part — how  far  more 
wonderful  the  mystery  of  the  chemistry  of  her 
life  would  have  appeared!  Some  very  grave 
and  venerable  F.R.S.  might,  perchance,  have 
ventured  reverently  to  whisper:  ''Beautiful 
human  sister!   built  of  the  water,  the  flint,  and 


1 


h 


I 


H 


Death- 


i 


the  lime;  you  are  much  more  marvellous  than 
all  that!  Your  sacred  simplicity  does  not  and 
must  not  yet  understand  your  celestial  com- 
plexity! Otherwise  you  should  be  aware  that, 
hidden  within  the  gracious  house  made  of 
those  common  materials — softly  and  silently 
developed  there  by  forces  which  you  know 
not,  and  yet  govern,  unwittingly  exercising  a 
perpetual  physiological  magic — are  tiny  golden 
beginnings  of  your  sons  and  daughters  to  be. 
You  have  heard  of  and  marvelled  at  Iliads 
written  on  films  of  fairy  thinness,  and  enclosed 
within  nutshells!  Diviner  poems,  in  infinitely 
finer  characters,  upon  far  subtler  surfaces,  are 
inscribed  upon  each  of  those  occult  jewels  of 
your  destined  maternity!  The  history  of  all 
the  vanished  lives  of  those  to  whom,  by  many 
lines  and  stems,  you  are  the  charming  heiress 
— from  their  utmost  heights  of  mental  reach  to 
their  smallest  tricks  of  habit  and  feature ;  from 
passions  and  propensities  to  moles  and  birth- 


and    Afterwards. 


15 


marks — are  occultly  recorded  in  the  invisible 
epigraph  of  those  enchanted  germs,  to  be  more 
or  less  developed  when  the  flame  on  that  new 
altar  of  later  life,  of  which  you  are  the  sacred 
priestess,  brings  to  reproduction  such  miracu- 
lous epitomes."  She  would  not,  and  could 
not,  understand,  of  course;  yet  all  this  is  mat- 
ter of  common  observation,  the  well-established 
faci  of  heredity  by  pangenesis,  certain  though 
incomprehensible.  What,  therefore,  is  there  to 
be  pronounced  impossible,  because  of  our  blind- 
ness, in  regard  to  endless  continuity  and  de- 
velopments of  individuality,  when  out  of  the 
holy  ignorance  of  such  maidenly  simplicity 
there  can  be  thus  subtly  and  steadfastly  pre- 
pared the  indescribable  beginnings  of  mother- 
hood ?  If  one  result  of  each  human  life  should 
be  to  produce,  more  or  less  completely,  a 
substantial,  though  at  present  invisible,  environ- 
ment for  the  next  higher  stage — while  handing 
on,   by  collateral  lives,  the  lamp  of  humanity 


i6 


Death- 


to  new  hands — that  would  not  be  really  more 
strange  than  the  condensation  of  the  oak-tree 
in  the  acorn,  or  the  natural  sorcery  of  the  con- 
tact of  the  milt  and  the  spawn.  ''Miracles" 
are  cheap  enough! 

Another  consideration  having  some  force, 
is  that  we  should  find  ourselves  speculating 
about  this  matter  at  all.  All  the  other  aspirations 
of  infancy,  youth,  and  manhood  turn  out  more 
or  less,  as  time  rolls,  to  have  been  prophecies. 
Instincts  explain  and  justify  themselves,  each 
by  each.  The  body  foresees  and  provides  for 
its  growth  by  appetite;  the  mind  expands 
towards  knowledge  by  childish  curiosity;  the 
young  heart  predicts,  by  the  flushed  cheek  and 
quickening  pulse,  that  gentle  master-passion 
which  it  has  not  yet  learned  even  to  name. 
There  is  a  significance,  like  the  breath  of  a 
perpetual  whisper  from  Nature,  in  the  way  in 
which  the  theme  of  his  own  immortality  teases 
and  haunts  a  man.    Note  also  that  he  discusses 


and    Afterwards. 


17 


it  least  and  decides  about  it  most  dogmatically 
in  those  diviner  moments  when  the  breath  of  a 
high  impulse  sweeps  away  work-a-day  doubts 
and  selfishnesses.  What  a  blow  to  the  philos- 
ophy of  negation  is  the  sailor  leaping  from  the 
taffrail  of  his  ship  into  an  angry  sea  to  save 
his  comrade  or  to  perish  with  him!  He  has 
never  read  either  Plato  or  Schopenhauer — per- 
haps not  even  that  heavenly  verse,  ''Whoso 
loseth  his  life  for  my  sake,  the  same  shall  save 
it."  But  arguments  which  are  as  far  beyond 
philosophy,  as  the  unconscious  life  is  deeper 
than  the  conscious,  sufficiently  persuade  him 
to  plunge.  "Love  that  stronger  is  than  death" 
bids  him  dare,  for  her  imperious  sake,  the  wel- 
tering abyss;  and  any  such  deed  of  sacrifice 
and  heroic  contempt  of  peril,  in  itself  almost 
proves  that  man  knows  more  than  he  believes 
himself  to  know  about  his  own  immortality. 
Every  miner  working  for  wife  and  children  in 
a   "fiery"  pit;  every  soldier  standing  cool  and 


i8 


Death- 


and    Afterwards. 


19 


V 


11 


firm  for  his  country  and  flag  in  those  desert- 
zarebas  of  Stewart  and  Graham,  offers  a  similar 
endorsement  of  Walt  Whitman's  indignant  sen- 
tence, *'lf  rats  and  maggots  end  us,  then 
alarum!  for  we  are  betrayed." 

"Well,"  it  will  be  said,  *'but  we  may  be 
betrayed!"  The  bottom  of  the  sea,  as  the 
dredging  of  the  Challenger  proves,  is  paved  with 
relics  of  countless  elaborate  lives  seemingly 
wasted.  The  great  pyramid  is  a  mountain  of 
bygone  nummulites.  The  statesman's  marble 
statue  is  compacted  from  the  shells  and  casts 
of  tiny  creatures  which  had  as  good  a  right  to 
immortality  from  their  own  point  of  view  as 
he.  Moreover,  it  may  be  urged,  the  suicide, 
who  only  seeks  peace  and  escape  from  trouble, 
confronts  death  with  just  as  firm  a  decisiveness 
as  the  brave  sailor  or  dutiful  soldier.  Most 
suicides,  however,  in  their  last  written  words, 
seem  to  expect  a  change  for  the  better,  rather 
than  extinction;   and  it  is  a  curious  proof  of 


the  surviving  propriety  and  self-respect  of  the 
very  desperate,   that  forlorn  women,  jumping 
from  Waterloo  Bridge,  almost  always  fold  their 
shawls  quite  neatly,  lay  them  on  the  parapet, 
and    place  their    bonnets   carefully  atop,    as  if 
the  fatal  balustrade  were  but  a  boudoir  for  the 
disrobing    soul.    In    regard    to    the   argument 
of  equal  rights  of  continuous  existence  for  all 
things    which    live,   it    must  be  admitted.     If 
the  bathybius— nay,  even  if  the  trees  and  the 
mosses— are    not,    as    to    that  which    makes 
them  individual,  undying,  man  will  never  be. 
If  life  be  not  as  inextinguishable  in  every  egg 
of  the  herring  and  in  every  bird  and  beast,  as 
in    the    poet   and  the   sage,   it   is   extinguish- 
able  in  angels  and  archangels.     What,  then,  is 
that  specialized  existence  which,  some  believe, 
can  and    does   survive  and  take  new  shapes, 
when  the  small  dying   sea-creature  drops   its 
flake  of  pearl  to  the  ooze,  when  the  dog-fish 
swallows   a   thousand   trivial   herring-fry,   and 


20 


Death- 


and    Afterwards. 


21 


when  the    poet  and    the    sage    lie  silent    and 

cold? 

The  reason  why  nobody  has  ever  answered, 
or,  probably,  ever  will  answer,  is  that  each 
stage  of  existence  can  only  be  apprehended 
and  defined  by  the  powers  appertaining  to  it. 
Herein  lurks  the  fallacy  which  has  bred  such 
contempt  for  transcendental  speculations,  be- 
cause people  try  to  talk  of  what  abides  beyond, 
in  terms  of  their  present  experience.  It  is  true 
they  must  do  this  or  else  remain  silent;  but 
the  inherent  disability  of  terrestrial  speech  and 
thought  ought  to  be  kept  more  constantly  in 
view.  How  absurd  it  is,  for  example,  to 
hear  astronomers  arguing  against  existence  in 
the  moon  or  in  the  sun>  because  there  seems 
to  be  no  atmosphere  in  one,  and  the  other  is 
enveloped  in  blazing  hydrogen!  Beings  are  at 
least  conceivable  as  well  as  fitted  to  inhale 
incandescent  gas,  or  not  to  breathe  any  gases 
at  all,  as  to  live  upon  the  diluted  oxygen  of 


\ 


l:\ 


our  own  air.  Embodied  life  is,  in  all  cases,  the 
physiological  equation  of  its  environing  condi- 
tions. Water  and  gills,  lungs  and  atmosphere^ 
co-exist  by  correlation ;  and  stars,  suns,  and 
planets  may  very  well  be  peopled  with  proper 
inhabitants  as  natural  to  them  as  nut-bushes 
to  us,  though  entirely  beyond  the  wit  of  man 
to  imagine.  Even  here,  in  our  own  low  de- 
grees of  life^  how  could  the  oyster  compre- 
hend the  flashing  cruises  of  the  sword-fish, 
or  he,  beneath  the  waves,  conceive  the  flight 
and  nesting  of  a  bird?  Yet  these  are  near 
neighbours  and  fellow- lodgers  upon  the  same 
globe.  Of  the  ingredients  of  that  globe  we 
build  our  bodies:  we  speak  by  agitating  its 
air;  we  know  no  light  save  those  few  beams 
of  the  half-explored  solar  spectrum  to  which 
our  optic  nerve  responds.  We  have  to  think 
in  terms  of  earth-experience,  as  we  have  to  live 
by  breathing  the  earth-envelope.  We  ought 
to  be  reassured,  therefore,  rather  than  discon- 


il 


certed,  by  the  fact  that  nobody  can  pretend 
to  understand  and  depict  any  future  life,  for 
it  would  prove  sorely  inadequate  if  it  were  at 
present  intelligible.  To  know  that  we  cannot 
now  know  is  an  immense  promise  of  coming 
enlightenment.  We  only  meditate  safely  when 
we  realize  that  space,  time,  and  the  phenom- 
ena of  sense  are  provisional  forms  of  thought. 
Mathematicians  have  made  us  familiar  with 
at  least  the  idea  of  space  of  four  and  more 
dimensions.  As  for  time,  it  is  an  absurd  illu- 
sionary  appearance  due  partly  to  another  illu- 
sion, that  of  the  seeming  succession  of  events, 
and  partly  to  the  motion  of  heavenly  bodies,  so 
that  by  forgetting  everything,  and  by  going 
close  to  the  North  Pole  and  walking  east- 
wards, a  man  might,  astronomically,  wind 
back  again  the  lost  days  of  his  life  upon  a 
reversed  calendar.  Such  simple  considerations 
rebuke  materialists  who  think  they  have  found 
enough  in  finding  a   **law,"  which  is    really 


and    Afterwards. 


23 


but  a  temporary  memorandum  of  observed  or- 
der, leaving  quite  unknown  the  origin  of  it 
and  the  originator.  Even  to  speak,  therefore, 
of  future  life  in  the  terms  of  the  present  is 
irrational,  and  this  inadequacy  of  our  faculties 
should  guard  us  from  illusions  of  disbelief  as 
well  as  of  belief.  Nature,  like  many  a  ten- 
der mother,  deceives  and  puts  off  her  children 
habitually.  We  learned  from  Copernicus,  not 
from  her,  that  the  earth  went  round  the  sun; 
from  Harvey,  not  from  her,  how  the  loving 
aching  heart  of  man  does  its  work;  from 
Simpson,  not  from  her,  how  the  measureless 
flood  of  human  anguish  could  be  largely  con- 
trolled by  the  ridiculously  simple  chemical 
compound  of  QHClg,  or  ''chloroform."  Men 
must  be  prepared^  therefore,  to  find  themselves 
misled  as  to  the  plainest  facts  about  life,  death, 
and  individual  development.  We  shall  inherit 
the  deplorable  world-feuds  of  the  past  long 
after  they  have  sufficiently  taught  their  nursery 


24 


Death- 


lessons  of  human  effort,  valor,  patriotism,  and 
brotherhood;  and  we  shall  live  in  the  gloom 
of  ancestral  fears  and  ignorances  when  the  use 
of  them  for  making  man  cling  to  the  life  which 
he  alone  knows  has  for  ages  passed  away. 
But,  all  the  time,  it  is  quite  likely  that  in  many 
mysteries  of  life  and  death  we  precisely  re- 
semble the  good  knight,  Don  Quixote,  when 
he  hung  by  his  wrist  from  the  stable  window, 
and  imagined  that  a  tremendous  abyss  yawned 
beneath  his  feet.  Maritornes  cuts  the  thong 
with  lightsome  laughter,  and  the  gallant  gentle- 
man falls — four  inches !  Perhaps  Nature,  so  full 
of  unexplained  ironies,  reserves  just  as  blithe- 
some a  surprise  for  her  offspring,  when  their 
time  arrives  to  discover  the  simplicity,  agree- 
ableness,  and  absence  of  any  serious  change, 
in  the  process  called  ''dying."  Pliny,  from 
much  clinical  observation,  declared  his  opinion 
that  the  moment  of  death  was  the  most 
exquisite  instant  of  life.     He  writes,  "Ipse  dis- 


and    Afterwards. 


25 


cessus  animae  plerumque  fit  sine  dolore,  nonnun- 
quam  etiam  cum  ipsa  voluptate."  Dr.  Solander 
was  so  delighted  with  the  sensation  of  perishing 
by  extreme  cold  in  the  snow,  that  he  always 
afterwards  resented  his  rescue.  Dr.  Hunter,  in 
his  latest  moments,  grieved  that  he  "could  not 
write  how  easy  and  delightful  it  is  to  die." 
The  late  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  as  his 
"agony"  befell,  quietly  remarked,  "It  is  really 
nothing  much,  after  all!"  That  expression  of 
composed  calm  which  comes  over  the  faces  of 
the  newly  dead  may  not  be  merely  due  to 
muscular  relaxation.  It  is,  possibly,  a  last 
message  of  content  and  acquiescence  sent  us 
from  those  who  at  last  know  a  little  more  about 
it  than  ourselves — a  message  of  good  cheer  and 
of  pleasant  promise,  not  by  any  means  to  be 
disregarded.  With  accent  as  authoritative  as 
that  heard  at  Bethany  it  has  seemed  to  many 
to  murmur,  "Thy  brother  shall  live  again!" 
The  fallacy  of  thinking  and  speaking  of  a 


i: 


! 


26 


Death- 


future  life  in  terms  of  our  present  limited  sense- 
knowledge  has  given  rise  to  extremely  foolish 
visions  of  ** heaven,"  and  made  many  gentle 
and  religious  minds  thereby  incredulous.  As 
a  matter  of  observation,  no  artist  can  paint 
even  in  outline  a  form  outside  his  experience. 
Orcagna,  in  the  Campo  Santo  at  Pisa,  tried 
to  represent  some  quite  original  angels,  and 
the  result  is  a  sort  of  canary-bird  with  sleeved 
pinions  and  a  female  visage.  Man  never  so 
much  as  imagined  the  kangaroo  and  ornitho- 
rhynchus  till  Captain  Cook  discovered  their 
haunts;  how,  then,  should  he  conceive  the 
aspect  of  angels  and  new-embodied  spirits? 
But  why  should  he  be  sceptical  about  them 
because  his  present  eyes  are  constructed  for  no 
such  lovely  and  subtle  sights?  We  can  per- 
ceive how  very  easily  our  senses  are  eluded 
even  by  lower  modes  of  matter.  The  solid 
block  of  ice,  whereon  we  stood  and  skated,  is 
just  as  existent  when  it  has  melted  into  water 


and    Afterwards. 


27 


and  become  dissipated  as  steam;  but  it  dis- 
appears for  us.  The  carbonic  acid  gas,  which 
we  could  not  see,  is  compressed  by  the  chemist 
into  fleecy  flakes  and  tossed  from  palm  to  palm. 
St.  Paul  was  a  much  better  physical  philoso- 
pher than  the  materialists  and  sceptics  when 
he  declared  "the  things  not  seen  are  eternal." 
But  these  invisible,  eternal  things  are  not,  on 
account  of  their  exquisite  subtlety,  to  be  called 
"supernatural."  They  must  belong,  in  an  as- 
cending yet  strictly  connected  chain,  to  the 
most  substantial  and  to  the  lowest,  if  there  be 
anything  low.  The  ethereal  body,  if  there  be 
such  a  garb,  which  awaits  us,  must  be  as 
real  as  the  beef-fattened  frame  of  an  East  End 
butcher.  The  life  amid  which  it  will  live  and 
move  must  be  equipped,  enriched,  and  diver- 
sified in  a  fashion  corresponding  with  earthly 
habits,  but  to  an  extent  far  beyond  the  narrow 
vivacities  of  our  present  being.  We  need  to 
abolish  utterly  the  perilous  mistake  that  any- 


i 


28 


Death- 


r 


thing  anywhere  is  ** supernatural,"  or  shadowy, 
or  vague.  The  angelic  Regent  of  Alcyone — if 
there  be  one — in  the  heart  of  the  Pleiades,  is 
*' extra-natural"  for  us;  but  as  simple,  real, 
and  substantial,  no  doubt,  to  adequate  percep- 
tions as  a  Chairman  of  quarter  sessions  to  his 
clerk. 

Remembering,  then,  that  the  undeveloped 
cannot  know  the  developed,  though  it  may 
presage  and  expect  it;  remembering  that  bisul- 
phide of  carbon  is  aware  of  actinic  rays  invisible 
to  us;  that  selenium  swells  to  light  which  is 
not  felt  by  our  organization;  that  a  sensitized 
film  at  the  end  of  the  telescope  photographs 
a  million  stars  we  did  not  see;  and  that  the 
magnetic  needle  knows  and  obeys  forces  to 
which  our  most  delicate  nerves  are  absolutely 
dull;  it  seems  within  the  range,  and  not  be- 
yond the  rights,  of  the  imagination  to  enter- 
tain confident  and  happy  dreams  of  successive 
states  of  real  and  conscious  existence,  rising  by 


and    Afterwards. 


29 


evolution  through  succeeding  phases  of  endless 
life.  Why,  in  truth,  should  evolution  proceed 
along  the  gross  and  palpable  lines  of  the  visible, 
and  not  also  be  hard  at  work  upon  the  subtler 
elements  which  are  behind — moulding,  govern- 
ing, and  emancipating  them  ?  Is  it  enough, 
together  with  the  Positivists,  to  foresee  the 
amelioration  of  the  race  ?  Their  creed  is,  cer- 
tainly, generous  and  unselfish;  but  since  it 
teaches  the  eventual  decay  of  all  worlds  and 
systems,  what  is  the  good  of  caring  for  a  race 
which  must  be  extinguished  in  some  final  cata- 
clysm, any  more  than  for  an  individual  who 
must  die  and  become  a  memory  ?  If  death  ends 
the  man,  and  cosmic  convulsions  finish  off  all 
the  constellations,  then  we  arrive  at  the  insane 
conception  of  an  universe  possibly  emptied 
of  every  form  of  being,  which  is  the  most 
unthinkable  and  incredible  of  all  conclusions. 
Sounder,  beyond  question,  was  the  simple  wis- 
dom of  Shakespeare's  old  hermit   of   Prague, 


s 


I) 


30 


Death- 


who  "  never  saw  pen  and  ink,  and  very 
wittily  said  to  a  niece  of  King  Gorboduc,  *  That 
that  is,  is!'" 

If  so  very  sensible  a  recluse  had  gone  deeper 
into  that  same  grand  philosophy  of  common- 
sense,  we  might  fancy  him  saying  to  the  niece 
of  his  Majesty:  "There  is  an  immense  deal  in 
this  plain  fact,  fair  Princess!  that  we  are  alive, 
and  far  advanced  in  the  hierarchy  of  such  life 
as  we  know.  We  cannot  indeed  fly  like  a 
bird,  nor  swim  like  a  dog-fish,  nor  hunt  by 
smell  like  a  hound,  but — vanity  apart — we  seem 
to  sit  at  the  top  of  the  tree  of  visible  earth-life, 
and  what  comes  next  ought  to  come  for  us." 
If  there  has  been  a  boundless  Past  leading  to 
this  odd  little  Present,  the  individual,  it  is 
clear,  remembers  nothing.  Either  he  was  not; 
or  he  lived  unconscious;  or  he  was  conscious, 
but  forgets.  It  may  be  he  always  lived,  and 
inwardly  knows  it,  but  now  "disremembers;" 
for  it  is  notable  that  none  of  us  can  recall  the 


9t 

i 


and    Afterwards. 


31 


first  year  of  our  human  existence,  though  we 
were  certainly  then  alive.  Instincts,  moreover, 
are  bodily  memories,  and  when  the  newly 
hatched  chick  pecks  at  food,  it  must  certainly 
have  lived  somehow  and  somewhere  long  be- 
fore it  was  an  egg.  If  to  live  for  ever  in  the 
future  demands  that  we  must  have  lived  for 
ever  in  the  past,  there  is  really  nothing  against 
this!  ''End  and  beginning  are  dreams;"  mere 
phrases  of  our  earthly  limited  speech.  But 
taking  things  as  they  seem,  nobody  knows 
that  death  stays — nor  why  it  should  stay — the 
development  of  the  individual.  It  stays  our 
perception  of  it  in  another's  case;  but  so  does 
distance,  absence,  or  even  sleep.  Birth  gave 
to  each  of  us  much ;  death  may  give  very  much 
more,  in  the  way  of  subtler  senses  to  behold^ 
colours  we  cannot  here  see,  to  catch  sounds 
we  do  not  now  hear,  and  to  be  aware  of 
bodies  and  objects  impalpable  at  present  to  us, 
but  perfectly  real,  intelligibly  constructed,  and 


I 


32 


Death- 


constituting  an  organized  society  and  a  gov- 
erned, multiform  State.  Where  does  Nature 
show  signs  of  breaking  off  her  magic,  that  she 
should  stop  at  the  five  organs  and  the  sixty 
or  seventy  elements  ?  Are  we  free  to  spread 
over  the  face  of  this  little  earth,  and  never 
freed  to  spread  through  the  solar  system  and 
beyond  it?  Nay,  the  heavenly  bodies  which 
we  can  discern,  for  all  their  majesty,  are  to 
the  ether  which  contains  them  as  mere  spores 
of  seaweed  floating  in  the  ocean.  Are  the 
specks  only  filled  with  life,  and  not  the  space  ? 
What  does  Nature  possess  more  valuable  in 
all  she  has  labored  to  manufacture  here,  than 
the  wisdom  of  the  sage,  the  tenderness  of  the 
mother,  the  devotion  of  the  lover,  and  the  opu- 
lent imagination  of  the  poet,  that  she  should 
'  let  these  priceless  things  be  utterly  lost  by  a 
quinsy,  or  a  flux  ?  It  is  a  hundred  times  more 
reasonable  to  believe  that  she  commences  afresh 
with  such  delicately  developed  treasures,  mak- 


I 


and    Afterwards. 


33 


ing  them  groundwork  and  stuff  for  splendid 
farther  living,  by  process  of  death;  which, 
even  when  it  seems  accidental  or  premature, 
is  probably  as  natural  and  orderly  as  birth,  of 
which  it  is  the  complement;  and  wherefrom, 
it  may  well  be,  the  new-born  dead  arises  to 
find  a  fresh  world  ready  for  his  pleasant  and 
novel,  but  sublimated,  body,  with  gracious  and 
willing  kindred  ministrations  awaiting  it,  like 
those  which  provided  for  the  human  babe  the 
guarding  arms  and  nourishing  breasts  of  its 
mother.  Emerson  says  so  well,  speaking  of 
the  gentle  and  ample  birth  arrangements  made 
for  us  here,  ''We  are  all  born  Princes!"  As 
the  babe's  eyes  opened  from  the  darkness  of 
maternal  safeguard  to  strange  sunlight  on  this 
globe,  so  may  the  eyes  of  the  dead  lift  glad 
and  surprised  lids  to  ''a  light  that  never  was 
on  sea  or  land;"  and  so  may  his  delighted  ears 
hear  speech  and  music  proper  to  the  spheres 
beyond,  while  he    smiles    contentedly  to  find 


34 


Death- 


(I 


how  touch  and  taste  and  smell  had  all  been 
forecasts  of  faculties  accurately  following  upon 
the  lowly  lessons  of  this  earthly  nursery!  It 
is  really  just  as  easy  and  logical  to  think  such 
may  be  the  outcome  of  the  "life  which  now 
is,"  as  to  terrify  weak  souls  into  wickedness 
by  mediaeval  hells,  or  to  wither  the  bright  in- 
stincts of  youth  or  love  with  horizons  of  black 
annihilation. 

Moreover,  those  new  materials  and  sur- 
roundings of  the  farther  being  would  bring  a 
more  intense  and  verified  as  well  as  a  higher 
existence.  Man  is  less  superior  to  the  sensitive- 
plant  now  than  his  re-embodied  spirit  would 
probably  then  be  to  his  present  personality. 
Nor  does  anything  except  ignorance  and  de- 
spondency forbid  the  belief  that  the  senses  so 
etherealized  and  enhanced,  and  so  fitly  adapted 
to  fine  combinations  of  an  advanced  entity, 
would  discover  without  much  amazement  sweet 
and  friendly  societies  springing  from,  but  pro- 


and    Afterwards. 


35 


portionately  upraised  above,  the  old  associa- 
tions; art  divinely  elevated,  science  splendidly 
expanding;  bygone  loves  and  sympathies  ex- 
plaining and  obtaining  their  purpose;  activities 
set  free  for  vaster  cosmic  service;  abandoned 
hopes  and  efforts  realized  in  rich  harvests  at 
last;  despaired-of  joys  come  magically  within 
ready  reach;  regrets  and  repentances  softened 
by  wider  knowledge,  by  surer  foresight,  and 
by  the  discovery  that,  although  in  this  universe 
nothing  can  be  ''forgiven,"  everything  maybe 
repaid  and  repaired.  In  such  a  stage,  though 
little  removed  relatively  from  this,  the  widening 
of  faith,  delight,  and  love  (and  therefore  of  vir- 
tue which  depends  on  these)  would  be  very 
large.  Everywhere  would  be  discerned  the 
fact,  if  not  the  full  mystery,  of  continuity,  of 
evolution,  and  of  the  never-ending  progress  in 
all  that  lives  towards  beauty,  happiness,  and 
use  without  limit.  To  call  such  a  life  '*  Heaven  " 
or  the  *'  Hereafter"  is  a  temporary  concession  to 


li 


36 


Death- 


the  illusions  of  speech  and  thought,  for  these 
words  imply  locality  and  time,  which  are  but 
provisional  conceptions.  It  would  rather  be  a 
state,  a  plane  of  faculties,  to  expand  again  into 
other  and  higher  states  and  planes;  the  slow- 
est and  lowest  in  the  race  of  life  coming  in 
last,  but  each— everywhere— finally  attaining. 
After  all,  as  Shakespeare  so  merrily  hints, 
''That  that  is,  is!"  and  when  we  look  into 
the  blue  of  the  sky  we  actually  see  visible 
Infinity.  When  we  regard  the  stars  of  mid- 
night we  veritably  perceive  the  mansions  of 
Nature,  countless  and  illimitable;  so  that  even 
our  narrow  senses  reprove  our  timid  minds. 
If  such  shadows  of  an  Immeasurable  and  Inex- 
haustible Future  of  peace,  happiness,  beauty, 
and  knowledge  be  but  ever  so  faintly  cast  from 
what  are  real  existences,  fear  and  care  might, 
at  one  word,  pass  from  the  minds  of  men,  as 
evil  dreams  depart  from  little  children  waking 
to  their  mother's  kiss;  and  all  might  feel  how 


and    Afterwards. 


37 


subtly  wise  he  was  who  wrote  of  that  first 
mysterious  night  on  earth,  which  showed  the 
unsuspected  stars ;  when — 

....   *' Hesperus,  with  the  host  of  heaven, 
came, 
And  lo!  Creation  widened  on  man's  view! 
Who  could  have  thought  such   marvels  lay 
concealed 
Behind  thy  beams,  O  Sun  ?  or  who  could  find — 
Whilst  flower  and  leaf  and  insect  stood  re- 
vealed— 
That  to  such  countless  orbs  thou  mad'st  us  blind  ? 
Why  do  we,  then,  shun  death  with  anxious 

strife  ? 
!f  Light  can  thus  deceive,  wherefore  not  Life  ?  " 


While  the  above  was  in  course  of  re-publi- 
cation, it  was  sent  to  two  very  distinguished 
men  of  science,  with  a  request  for  their  opinion 
upon  the  reasonableness,  or  lack  of  reason, 
in  its  pages.  One  of  them,  renowned  for  his 
chemical    investigations,   returned  it  with    ex- 


i 


l( 


/•  I 


38 


Death- 


pressions  of  pleasure  and  of  general  agreement 
which  have  greatly  encouraged  this  reprint. 
The  other,  whose  name  is  famous  wherever 
Science  is  followed,  and  whose  researches  in 
Natural  Philosophy  confer  imperishable  lustre 
on  the  Victorian  era,  has  honored  the  author 
with  a  letter,  profoundly  interesting  and  sug- 
gestive, but  which,  from  its  nature  and  frank 
confidences,  he  is  not  at  liberty  to  quote.  It 
was  accompanied,  however,  by  a  few  memo- 
randa upon  the  article,  written  by  a  highly 
gifted  friend  of  that  illustrious  correspondent; 
and  these  it  is  permitted  to  append.  The  writer 
says : 

*'That  which  has  been  'born'  must  'die.' 
The  two  are  one:  birth  and  death  one  event 
which  'happens'  to  a  being,  but  which  is  cleft 
in  twain  by  a  little  fissure  we  call  life 

**Why  is  life  a  problem  at  all?  Why  is 
there  no  categorical  explanation  (of  our  conscious- 
ness of  larger  life)  necessarily  accepted  by  every 
sound  mind  or  sane  intelligence  ?    Is  it  not  be- 


and    Afterwards. 


39 


cause  a  scientifically  exhaustive  answer  cannot 
be  given  in  the  terms  of  time  and  space  as  we 
now  realize  them  ?  When  instead  of  masters 
they  become  servants,  when  instead  of  blank 
prison  walls  they  become  open  doors  and  path- 
ways, shall  we  not  enter  a  new  mental  world, 
though  one  firmly  linked  in  continuity  with  the 
present  ? 

"We  need  to  translate  the  facts  of  physical 
nature  into  those  of  moral,  mental,  and  spiritual 
nature.  We  need  to  repudiate  with  abhorrence 
the  whole  machinery  of  magic  and  sorcery  and 
««natural  prodigy  which  we  have  confounded 
with  that  which  is  most  natural,  most  healthy 
or  holy — most  sound  and  whole;  that  which 
is  to  our  mind  and  conscience  what  the  brain 
is  to  our  physical  structure — its  director  and 
its  interpreter. 

"Most  truly  Mr.  Arnold  says  that  the  high- 
est  must  belong  to  the  lowest  in  an  unbroken 
chain.  And  we  are  often  rebuked  by  finding 
the  highest  type  of  beauty  and  fitness  in  the 
most  despised  or  '  lowest '  of  microscopic  organ- 
isms or  even  particles.     On    the  other   hand, 


40 


Death- 


f'  I 


the  visible  is  not  necessarily  'gross'  except  in 
the  sense  of  coarse-grained— /^r^^  in  scale :  our 
whole  region  of  sense-perception  may  repre- 
sent but  one  fibre  of  the  tissue  of  consciousness. 
*'Let  us  try  to  realize  that  the  current 
phraseologies  only  mislead  when  supposed  to 
embrace  actual  fact  becoming  accessible  first  to 
conception,  then  to  consciousness  and  experience. 
The  general  tendency  of  observed  order  seems 
to  suggest  that  we  have  a  *  planetary '  conscious- 
ness, or  one  which  naturally  starts  from  this 
earth  as  a  mental  centre;  that  since  the  Coperni- 
can  era  began  we  have  been  gradually  develop- 
ing a  'solar'  or  'systematic'  consciousness,  and 
are  already  beginning  to  refer  many  verified 
facts  to  a  mental  'sun'  as  a  centre;  and  that  a 
complete  generalization,  or  satisfying  answer  to 
the  problems  which  as  yet  baffle  us,  needs  a 
'cosmicar  consciousness,  of  which  indeed  the 
fore-gleams  may  be  discerned  in  the  very  ques- 
tions we  ask,  in  the  very  doubts  suggested 
to  us,  in  the  very  paradoxes  of  which  Nature 
is  full.  Or  we  may  consider  the  same  order 
as  the  cellular,  the  functional,  and  the  organic 


^  i 


and    Afterwards. 


41 


consciousness.  A  neucleated  cell  might  be: 
(i)  conscious  of  its  own  nucleus  and  of  the 
cell-world  only;  (2)  conscious  of  the  'heart' 
or  'lung'  to  which  it  belongs;  and  (3)  conscious 
of  the  complete  Living  Organism  which  is  the 
explanation  of  the  two  first,  and  their  raison 
d'etre, 

"Such  a  consciousness  in  the  three  grades 
would  be  strictly  related  and  strictly  natural 
throughout.  But  of  course  the  second  and  third 
would  successively  appear,  and  indeed  in  a  true 
sense  would  be  'super'  natural  (that  is,  extra- 
normal)  to  the  first,  as  long  as  this  first  con- 
sciousness (the  planetary  or  cellular)  was  sup- 
posed to  include  and  to  supply  terms  for  the 
whole  accessible  sphere  of  fact. 

"Many  other  similar  illustrations  will  occur 
to  us.  'Cellular'  consciousness  of  the  individual 
'  I '  may  be  compared  to  the  first  dimension  in 
space — one  line  only;  or  to  the  lowest  level  in 
the  triad  of  the  physical  (or  mechanical),  the 
chemical,  and  the  vital  as  given  by  Clifford, 
Littre,  and  all  the  host  of  scientific  authorities. 

"Or  it  might  be  illustrated  by  the  'gaseous' 


42 


Death- 


condition  (as  compared  to  the  liquid  and  then 
the  solid)  of  matters — whatever  that  may  be — 
or  perhaps  to  the  three  responses  to  light  and 
heat,  first  surface-reflection,  then  absorption, 
then  radiation.  But  of  course  all  this  takes  us 
into  the  dangerous  region  of  analogy — danger- 
ous surely  for  the  very  reason  that  the  general 
consciousness  is  so  embryonic— needing,  there- 
fore, rigorous  test. 

**Let  us  at  least  recognize  the  utter  futility 
of  discussion  or  controversy  which  treats  the 
average  or  commonly  accepted  notions  of  root- 
questions  at  issue  as  really  representative  or 
adequate.  No  wonder  that  we  cannot  make 
head  or  tail  of  this  or  that,  when  in  the  nature 
of  things  there  are  none  to  make!  But  it  does 
not  follow,  because  the  vertebrate  order  cannot 
be  properly  described  in  terms  of  the  protozoic, 
that  we  should  deliberately  relapse  into  *  agnos- 
tic '  bits  of  jelly,  and  denounce  bone,  muscle, 
or  nerve  as  *  metaphysic '  or  *  mysticism ' — two 
of  the  worst  of  names  to  hang  a  dog  by.  Let 
us  faithfully  and  patiently  cultivate  the  dawn- 
ing *  Copernican '  consciousness.     Assuredly  we 


and    Afterwards. 


43 


shall  thus  find  all  our  ideals  transformed  by 
being  *  lifted  up '  into  the  Real.  And  we  may 
be  sure  that  if  our  notions  are  rectified  and  en- 
larged and  deepened,  language  will  soon  begin 
to  follow,  and  their  practically  fruitful  applica- 
tion to  problems  of  conduct,  social  and  indi- 
vidual, will  become  possible  in  a  sense  hitherto 
despaired  of  by  most  of  us." 

From  the  same  deeply  thoughtful  mind  the 
subjoined  remarks  have  also  been  received  on 
the  general  subject: 

*' When  the  Galileo  of  Time — surely  coming 
— shall  have  made  conceivable  if  not  actually 
accessible  to  us,  what  answers  in  the  temporal 
sphere  to  the  *  antipodes'  we  know  as  spatial 
fact;  when  we  have  begun  to  realize  that  'past 
and  future  *  are  no  more  absolute  than  the  '  over 
and  under,'  the  'above  and  below'  which  now 
we  know  to  be  reversible  not  only  in  conception 
but  in  physical  experience, — then  perhaps  we 
may  alter  somewhat  our  estimate  of  the  com- 
parative value  of  the  local,  temporal,  sensuous 
character  of  a  'fact';  and  our  notion  of  what 


f/% 


44 


Death- 


constitutes  its  real  significance.  We  shall  learn 
to  distinguish  between  what  is  sacramental  as 
gift-bringing  and  representative,  and  what  is 
merely  event-ful  or  occasion-al.  What  comes  to 
pass  must  ever  pass  away,  but  what  is  real  is 
not  thus  gained  or  lost.  A  *  fact '  in  itself  as 
evident  to  the  senses, — apart  from  its  meaning 
and  effect,  from  what  it  conveys  and  manifests 
to  intelligence,  is  like — the  black  marks  upon 
this  paper,  or  the  noises  made  in  speaking.  But 
there  is  an  undying  reality  which  is  conveyed 
alike  through  sounds,  black  marks,  etc.,  or 
events;  through  the  acts  of  an  individual  equally 
with  the  narration  of  such  acts,  and  most  of  all, 
with  the  conception  of  them.  That  reality,  that 
substance,  that  precious  and  eternal  treasure, 
is  the  Meaning,  the  Object,  the  Gist  of  all  we 
know  as  fact;  timeless,  spaceless,  yet  energetic, 
creative,  fruitful.  This  is  the  reality  of  revela- 
tion spiritual  and  material, — and  more,  Divinely 
Natural;  this  is  the  reality  of  the  Divine  in 
the  Human  proclaimed  through  incarnation;  the 
heavenly  in  the  earthly,  the  holy  and  wholesome 
nature  in  both. 


and    Afterwards. 


I 


I 


45 


**  Finally,  this  is  the  underlying  quality  of 
'  phenomena '  which  gives  and  includes  all  that 
makes  them  worth  observation,  classification, 
interpretation,  application.  This  it  is  which 
transforms  all  that  is  presented  to  our  conscious- 
ness— whether  as  things  or  laws  or  occurrences 
— into  articulate  language;  showing  us  the  uni- 
verse of  'mind  and  matter,'  energy  and  motion, 
as  one  vast  Message  of  Order  and  of  Life. 

"Do  we  ask  what  difference  it  would  make 
if  we  realized  that  in  the  very  nature  of  things 
there  can  be  no  'fundamental  basis;'  that  there 
is  no  permanent  fixity  anywhere  in  relation  to 
us  except  in  a  secondary  sense;  that  the  very 
notion  out  of  which  the  metaphor  sprung  de- 
pends on  what  we  now  know  to  be  false;  that 
its  real  origin  is  the  primitive  idea  of  the  earth's 
being  immovably  fixed  and  settled  on  a  Base  or 
absolute  foundation.^    Why,  surely,  this: 

"We  have  all  to  learn  alike  that  what  seems 
to  us  like  the  vaguest  of  vacancies, — that  which 
appears  incapable  of  'supporting'  a  fly,  much 
less  a  pebble; — that  blank  in  which  there  is  not 
even  an  atmosphere  in  which  to  breathe  and  by 


46 


Death- 


means  of  which  to  move, — in  the  last  resort 
is  just  all  the  foundation  which  we  have.  That 
which  safely  bears  our  'solid  world'  in  the 
gulfs  of  space  is  no  base  or  basis,  no  moveless 
central  *  rock : '  but  throbbing  energies  in  com- 
plex and  manifold  action,  in  swing  and  wave 
and  thrill;  whirling  us  onward  in  mighty  sweeps 
of  threefold  rhythm  to  which  our  hearts  are  set. 
So  therefore  not  solidity  of  base  or  fixity  of 
status  is  our  supreme  and  vital  need,  but  mov- 
ing power  beyond  our  ken  or  senses;  known 
to  us  in  energizing  action,  and  working  through 
blue  'void:'  impelling  us  in  rings  of  spiral 
orbit  round  a  moving  sun  on  which  we  are 
dependent. 

*'What  then?  Is  fact  less  fact,  or  life  less 
life,  or  the  real  less  real  for  that?  No;  the 
revelation  of  the  '  dynamical '  order  succeeds 
that  of  the  'statical,'  only  to  give  fresh  and  ever 
fuller  witness  to  the  living  truth ;  the  Way  of  life 
itself,  like  the  spinning  world,  bears  us  forward 
on  its  bosom,  more  swiftly  than  we  can  journey 
on  it;  and  even  beyond  our  best  there  ever  rises 
a  better  hope,— a  hope  which  can  only  melt. 


and    Afterwards. 


47 


as  the  spectrum-color  melts,  into  the  white  and 
perfect  Light.  The  secret  of  religion,  the  key  to 
theology,  the  essence  of  revelation,  is  not,  as 
we  have  fancied,  a  question  of  fixed  centre 
or  immovable  foundation  or  solid  support;  the 
world  of  our  faith,  the  universe  of  our  Spiritual 
Verity,  depends,  not  upon  final  or  immutable 
'foundations,'  but  upon  the  perfect  order  and 
the  unchanging  might  of  coincident  forces,  of 
balanced  attractions,  of  undulating  impulses, 
of  subtle  vibrations,  of  harmonious  rhythm,  of 
spiral  progression,  of  ceaseless  and  universal 
movement;  in  short,  upon  the  supremacy,  not 
of  Divine  stability,  but  of  Divine  Energy.  And 
this  entails  the  transformation  of  all  our  spiritual 
thought  and  apprehension.  Supposing  that  we 
had  hitherto  conceived  water  to  be  something 
which  created  instead  of  quenching  thirst;  sup- 
posing we  had  imagined  air  to  be  solid  or  earth 
to  be  vaporous,  or  confounded  the  character 
and  use  of  a  coin  and  a  seed,  or  fancied  our 
blood  to  be  stationary  like  our  bones,  cannot 
we  see  how  fatally  our  current  use  of  metaphor 
would  have  misled  us  ? 


I 


a^ 


\i 


48 


Death- 


**Some  of  our  actual  conceptions  have  per- 
haps been  more  like  this  than  we  realize.  And 
thus  it  is  with  all  the  prescientific  ideas  and 
assumptions  which  we  now  have,  willing  or 
unwilling,  to  unlearn ;  thus  it  is  with  that  vast 
mass  of  metaphor  which  forms  the  very  tissue 
of  our  thought  and  speech. 

*'  But  while  losing  much  that  we  have  learned 
to  cling  to,  we  gain  what  is  a  hundredfold  in 
value,  if  we  only  have  faith  enough  to  trust 
God  now  as  light  We  find  that  Truth  meets 
every  need  afresh ;  we  find  that  never  can  true 
thought  outstrip  our  Christ.  We  find  our  liv- 
ing Way  through  countless  changes ;  stagnation 
dies  with  apathy  and  dread;  a  fearless,  hopeful 
strength  is  given  to  us;  we  know  that  nothing 
now  can  daunt  or  harm  us.  Each  ray  of  light 
which  science  brings,  reveals:  we  welcome 
what  in  old  days  terrified  us. 

**  We  grow  and  grow  and  feel  God's  touch 
upon  us;  we  give  and  give,  and  yet  our  store 
increases;  we  feel  the  breath  of  coming  life  and 
gladness,  we  see  a  distant  dawn  of  living  radi- 
ance.    Things  which  had  seemed  but  dry  and 


\ 


i 


and    Afterwards. 


49 


dusty  bones  begin  to  move,  arising;  the  out- 
worn weary  words  are  vivid  now;  they  beat 
and  glow  with  quick  and  pregnant  meaning. 
Let  us  go  forth  and  greet  the  coming  changes! 

**Let  us  give  up  our  own  effete  travesties. 
Let  us  be  brave  and  say  to  the  God  of  light, 
'  Speak,  Lord,  for  thy  servant  heareth ; '  not  pre- 
scribing or  limiting  to  our  pettiness  the  range 
and  form  of  the  answer,  but  adding,  '  Not  our 
will,  but  thine  be  done.'  For  then  will  come 
an  answer  charged  with  glory.  At  last  the 
life  through  death  shall  stand  unveiled.  And 
we  shall  surely  wonder  that  we  could  have 
doubted;  making  sorrow  barren  and  pain  mere 
torment ;  fighting  against  the  very  succor  sent 
us,  the  witness  of  the  new  force  of  conquer- 
ing Life." 

These  observations  seem  in  a  high  degree 
novel,  interesting,  and  valuable.  They  refer 
chiefly — as  will  be  seen — to  that  part  of  the 
foregoing  article  which  dwells  upon  the  inherent 
and  natural  impossibility,  at  present  and  in  this 
life — of  answering  in  any  language,  except  that 


\l\ 


so 


Death- 


of  the  algebra  of  hope  and  the  calculus  of 
probability,  the  ever  importunate  riddle  of  our 
existence.  But  men  would  be  very  well  satis- 
fied with  a  provisional  answer;  and  it  is  justly 
recognized  above  that  if  there  can  be  no  cer- 
tain proof  one  way,  there  can  still  less  be 
positive  disproof  the  other  way.  As  Omar 
Khayyam  says  in  his  Ricbaiyat: 

"  A  hair,  perhaps,  divides  the  False  and  True, 
Yes!  and  a  single  Alif  were  the  clew. 
Could  you  but  find  it,  to  the  Treasure-House, 
And,  peradventure,  to  the  Master,  too!" 

Each  great  discovery  of  Science  raises  us  to  a 
new  height  from  which  the  horizon  of  possi- 
bilities, physical  and  extra-physical,  perpetually 
expands;  although  scientific  minds  seem  occa- 
sionally to  miss  the  truest  and  best  revelation 
of  their  own  triumphs.  There  are  many  excel- 
lent savants,  for  example,  who  write  about 
Evolution,  which  explains  so  much,  as  if  for- 
getting that  it   "cannot  explain  itself."     Ad- 


and    Afterwards. 


51 


mirably  has  Mr.  Goldwin  Smith,  in  ''Lectures 
and  Essays,"  remarked  upon  this:  "With  our 
eyes  fixed  on  the  'Descent,'  newly  disclosed 
to  us,  may  we  not  be  losing  sight  of  the  Ascent 
of  Man?"  And  the  same  accomplished  author 
has  the  subjoined  passage,  which  bears  directly 
on  the  matter: 

"Suppose  spiritual  life  necessarily  implies  the 
expectation  of  a  Future  State,  has  physical  sci- 
ence anything  to  say  against  that  expectation  ? 
Physical  science  is  nothing  more  than  the  per- 
ceptions of  our  five  bodily  senses  registered  and 
methodized.  But  what  are  these  five  senses? 
According  to  physical  science  itself,  nerves  in  a 
certain  stage  of  evolution.  Why  then  should  it 
be  assumed  that  their  account  of  the  universe,  or 
of  our  relations  to  it,  is  exhaustive  and  final? 
Why  should  it  be  assumed  that  these  are  the 
only  possible  organs  of  perception,  and  that  no 
other  faculties  or  means  of  communication  with 
the  universe  can  ever  in  the  course  of  evolution 
be  developed  in  man  ?  Around  us  are  animals 
absolutely  unconscious,  so  far  as  we  can  discern, 


i 


52 


Death- 


of  that  universe  which  Science  has  revealed  to 
us.     A  sea  anemone,  if  it  can  reflect,  probably 
feels  as  confident  that  it  perceives  everything 
capable  of  being  perceived  as  the  man  of  science. 
The  reasonable  supposition,  surely,  is  that  though 
Science,  so  far  as  it  goes,  is  real,  and  the  guide 
of  our  present  life,  its  relation  to  the  sum  of 
things  is  not  much  more  considerable  than  that 
of  the  perceptions  of  the  lower  orders  of  animals. 
That  our  notions  of  the  universe  have  been  so 
vastly  enlarged  by  the  mere  invention  of  astro- 
nomical instruments  is  enough  in  itself  to  suggest 
the  possibility  of  further  and  infinitely  greater 
enlargement.    To  our  bodily  senses,  no  doubt, 
and  to  physical  science,  which  is  limited  by 
them,  human  existence  seems  to  end  with  death; 
but  if  there  is  anything  in  our  nature  which  tells 
us,  with  a  distinctness  and  persistency  equal  to 
those  of  our  sensible  perceptions,  that  hope  and 
responsibility  extend  beyond  death,  why  is  this 
assurance  not  as  much  to  be  trusted  as  that  of 
the  bodily  sense  itself?    There  is  apparently  no 
ultimate  criterion  of  truth,  whether  physical  or 
moral,  except  our  inability,  constituted  as  we 


and    Afterwards. 


S3 


are,  to  believe  otherwise;  and  this  criterion 
seems  to  be  satisfied  by  a  universal  and  ineradi- 
cable moral  conviction  as  well  as  by  a  universal 
and  irresistible  impression  of  sense." 

And,  farther  on: 

**We  are  enjoined,  sometimes  with  a  vehe- 
mence approaching  that  of  ecclesiastical  anath- 
ema, to  refuse  to  consider  anything  which  lies 
beyond  the  range  of  experience.  By  experience 
is  meant  the  perceptions  of  our  bodily  senses, 
the  absolute  completeness  and  finality  of  which, 
we  must  repeat,  is  an  assumption,  the  warrant 
for  which  must  at  all  events  be  produced  from 
other  authority  than  that  of  the  senses  them- 
selves. On  this  ground  we  are  called  upon  to 
discard,  as  worthy  of  nothing  but  derision,  the 
ideas  of  eternity  and  infinity.  But  to  dislodge 
these  ideas  from  our  minds  is  impossible;  just 
as  impossible  as  it  is  to  dislodge  any  idea  that 
has  entered  through  the  channels  of  the  senses ; 
and  this  being  so,  it  is  surely  conceivable  that 
they  may  not  be  mere  illusions,  but  real  ex- 
tensions of  our  intelligence  beyond  the  domain 
of   mere   bodily   sense,    indicating  an  upward 


i  I 


54 


Death- 


progress  of  our  nature.  Of  course  if  these  ideas 
correspond  to  reality,  physical  science,  though 
true  as  far  as  it  goes,  cannot  be  the  whole  truth, 
or  even  bear  any  considerable  relation  to  the 
whole  truth,  since  it  necessarily  presents  Being 
as  limited  by  space  and  time. 

''Whither  obedience  to  the  dictates  of  the 
higher  part  of  our  nature  will  ultimately  carry 
us,  we  may  not  be  able,  apart  from  Revelation, 
to  say;  but  there  seems  no  substantial  reason 
for  refusing  to  believe  that  it  carries  us  toward 
a  better  state.     Mere  ignorance,  arising  from  the 
imperfection  of  our  perceptive   powers,  of  the 
mode  in  which  we  shall  pass  into  that  better 
state,  or  of  its  precise  relation  to  our  present 
existence,  cannot  cancel  an  assurance,  otherwise 
valid,  of  our  general  destiny.     A  transmutation 
of  humanity,  such  as  we  can  conceive  to  be 
brought    about   by  the  gradual  prevalence  of 
higher  motives  of  action,  and  the  gradual  elimi- 
nation thereby  of  what  is  base  and  brutish,  is 
surely  no  more  incredible  than  the  actual  de- 
velopment  of  humanity,  as  it  is  now,  out  of  a 
lower  animal  form  or  out  of  inorganic  matter." 


and    Afterwards. 


55 


Yet  another  erudite  friend  comments  as  fol- 
lows upon  ''Death— and  Afterwards": 

"The  argument  appears  to  me  to  place  in  its 
strongest  form  the  moral  presumption  in  favor 
of  a  continued  existence.  It  is  Butler's  Analogy 
purified  from  the  'supernatural,'  and  brought 
into  harmony  with  Science.  It  still  leaves  on 
my  mind  the  difficulty,  which  is  perhaps  in- 
superable, of  balancing  this  moral  presumption — 
strengthened  confessedly  by  natural  analogies 
— against  the  physical  evidence  at  hand  of  man's 
individual  destruction,  and  the  negative  evidence 
— or  rather  negation  of  evidence — as  to  the 
existence  of  any  other  state  of  being.  All  experi- 
ence is  against  attaching  much  weight  to  the 
mere  want  of  evidence,  and  I  would  certainly 
allow  a  moral  presumption  to  weigh  more  than 
a  mere  negation. 

**This  presumed,  how  are  we  to  sum  up  the 
argument }  That  there  may  be  a  future  life>  the 
article  establishes  beyond  doubt.  Does  it  make 
it  equally  clear  that  it  is  probable  there  is  one  ? 
It  disposes  of  the  illusion  of  disbelief:  does  it 


f 


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S6 


Death- 


substitute  for  it  (as  Mill  thought)  the  presump- 
tion that  a  future  continuance  of  life  is  more 
likely  than  the  annihilation  of  intelligent  beings  ? 
**The  thesis  would  be  much  strengthened  if 
we  were  permitted  to  reason  on  the  probability 
that  purpose  underlies  the  things  that  are  seen. 
Teleology  has  been  abused,  but  I  think  it  cannot 
be  wholly  set  aside,  and  the  force  of  the  analogy 
is  immensely  increased  if  this  world  be  part  of  a 
system  of  things  having  some  intelligent  end  in 
view.     We  cannot  answer  the  inquiry— *  Why 
preserve  matter  and  motion,  and  not  conscious- 
ness and  intelligence?'— and  the  idea  is  nearly 
irresistible  that  they  may  be  preserved  in  states 
of  existence  separable  from  matter  and  motion. 
Suppose  that,  with  the  elimination  of  evils,  the 
perfection  of  species  ensues :  is  that  a  sufficient 
purpose  for  a  solar  system?    One  can  hardly 
think  it.     There  may  be  vast  developments  on 
this  sphere,  but  one  cannot  help  thinking  that  in 
some  way  or  other  we  must  be  brought  by 
correlation  into  connection  with  the  rest  of  the 

universe. 

**One  argument  herein   strikes  me  as  ex- 


\ 


and    Afterwards. 


57 


ceedingly  strong:  *Men  must  be  prepared  to 
find  themselves  misled  as  to  the  plainest  facts 
about  life,  death,  and  individual  development.' 
This  impresses  me  as  a  most  important  basis 
of  reasoning.  It  might  be  read  as  a  caution 
against  hoping  for  immortality;  for  Nature  may 
be  misleading  us  by  dangling  this  bait  before 
us,  and  the  very  general  diffusion  of  belief  in 
another  world  cannot,  after  all,  per  se,  rank 
much  higher  than  pervading  belief  in  witchcraft 
and  necromancy.  But,  on  the  whole,  Nature 
does  not  seem  beneficent,  and  the  better  is 
more  likely  to  prove  the  true,  than  the  worse, 
or  than  'nothing.' 

'*!  do  not  think  the  pretension  can  be  sus- 
tained that,  because  some  sorts  of  life  hereafter 
will  or  may  be  continued,  therefore  all  life  will 
or  may  be  so  continued.  Much  of  the  lower 
vitalities  may  be  mere  scaffolding — steps  to  the 
higher  and  more  complex. 

**  There  is,  meanwhile,  another  consideration 
which  adds  some  strength  to  the  position  taken 
up  in  the  article,  that  if  there  be  a  moral  sys- 
tem of  development,  then  uncertainty  as  to  the 


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58 


Death- 


future  may  be  an  essential  condition  of  it,  as 
our  natural  ignorance  is  to  the  development 
of  the  intellectual  faculties. 

'*  While  physical  science  leads  without  ques- 
tion to  agnosticism,  1  think  you  have  shown 
that  there  are  moral  and  intellectual  reasons 
(backed  by  extremely  forcible  material  analo- 
gies) which  restore  the  presumption  that  a 
future  life  is  possible,  and  even  probable." 

The  point  here  alluded  to,  the  educational 
and  evolutionary  action  of  our  perpetual  igno- 
rance, our  endless  curiosity,  our  ceaseless  effort, 
has  truly  much  value.  It  struck  Virgil  in  the 
same  strong  light,  even  as  regarded  agriculture : 

"Pater  ipse,  colendi 
Haud  facilem  esse  viam  voluit,   primusque  per 

artem 
Movit  agros,  curis  acuens  mortalia  corda, 
Nee  torpere  gravi  passus  sua  regna  veterno." 

How  many  exquisite  devices  of  Nature  are 
carried  to  fulfilment  in  the  dark!  In  how  many 
ways  she  coaxes  her  children  of  all  the  king- 


and    Afterwards. 


59 


\ 


doms  to  her  ends,  by  softly  misleading  their 
instincts !  It  is,  indeed,  almost  like  high  treason 
against  her  scheme  to  try  to  persuade  men 
that  death  is  nonsense,  so  urgent  is  she  to 
have  them  love  their  present  life,  and  cling  to 
it,  and  make  the  most  of  it.  The  philosophers 
who  take  so  much  trouble  to  teach  that  **life 
is  not  worth  living,"  and  yet  go  on  existing 
and  discharging  their  social  duties  so  admirably, 
make  one  think  that  Nature  is  rather  like  the 
hen-wives  in  Essex.  When  a  pullet  will  not 
sit,  these  good  women  pluck  off  the  breast- 
feathers  from  the  recalcitrant  fowls  and  whip 
the  bare  space  lightly  with  nettles ;  whereupon 
the  hens  go  straight  to  the  nest  to  ease  their 
skin  against  the  nice  cool  eggs;  and  habit 
keeps  them  there,  to  the  benefit  of  the  farm- 
yard and  the  poultry  market.  Pride,  doubt, 
fear,  ignorance,  ambition,  fashion,  bodily  needs, 
are  all  in  turn  the  nettles  of  Nature. 

It   seems,    of  course,    very    annoying   and 


m 


humiliating  to  be  coerced  or  cajoled  into  wis- 
dom and  patience;  to  have  to  rack  our  brains 
for  nothing,  and  find  the  right  life-path  chiefly 
by  the  thorns  which  prick  us  if  we  wander  from 
it.    Thus  many  will   sympathize  with  Horace 

when  he  says: 

**Quid  aeternis  minorem 
Consiliis  animum  fatigas  ?" 

And  also  with  Omar  the  Potter  writing: 

"Ah  Love!   Could  thou  and  I  with  Fate  conspire 
To  grasp  this  sorry  scheme  of  Things  entire, 
Would  we  not  shatter  it  to  bits,  and  then, 
Re-mould  it  nearer  to  our  Hearts'  Desire!" 

The  chief  object  of  these  pages,  however, 
is  to  suggest  that  all  such  complaints  are  not 
merely  idle,  but  foolish;  that  all  our  fears  are 
needless,  and  not  one  single  hope,  expecta- 
tion, or  aspiration  is  half  great  enough,  or  glad 
enough,  or  bold  enough;  that  the  secret  of 
the  Universe  is,  after  all,  an  open  one,  like 
that  of  the  earth's  motion,  or  any  other  tardily 


* 


and    Afterwards. 


6i 


made  intellectual  discovery  illuminating  the 
perpetual  fact  that  ''things  are  not  what  they 
seem."  We  fear  death,  but  may  perhaps  find 
it  agreeable,  interesting,  and  coming  just  at  the 
right  time,  whenever  it  comes.  For  Goethe  it 
was  enough  that  '*it  was  common."  We  de- 
bate with  vast  metaphysical  periphrasis  ''past, 
present,  and  future,"  and  shall  perchance  dis- 
cover— though  still  short  of  all  ultimates — that 
there  is  only  an  eternal  Now.  We  distress 
ourself  about  maintaining  our  identity  and  upon 
remaining  individual,  when,  quite  conceivably, 
the  lower  angels  laugh  at  our  small  aspirations 
herein,  and  exclaim,  "So  soon  made  happy!" 
May  there  not  be  coalesced  existences,  as  im- 
mensely higher  and  better  than  our  little  "ego" 
as  that  of  the  tree  is  than  those  of  the  cells 
which  build  every  inch  of  it,  from  rootlet  to 
topmost  twig?  Pain  is,  truly,  or  was,  a  hor- 
rible puzzle;  but  its  physiological  and  moral 
uses  were  always  plain ;  and  Science  has  prac- 


62 


Death- 


tically  mastered  it  at  last  with  the  benign 
discovery  of  anaesthetics.  Hatreds,  and  malig- 
nities ;  selfishnesses,  and  social  evils  of  all  kinds 
are  very  dreadful;  but  they  plainly  diminish 
before  the  light  of  education.  Probably  the 
Talmud  legend  is  right  in  spirit,  which  says 
that  the  dimple  upon  every  man's  and  woman's 
upper  lip  was  imprinted  there  by  the  hand 
of  God,  who,  in  creating  all  human  flesh, 
whispered,  "It  is  well!  "  but  pressed  His  fin- 
ger upon  our  mouths  to  prevent  us  telling 
each  other  what  we  know.  And  therefore, 
since  poets  have  the  instinct  of  insight,  and 
see  without  eyes,  it  is  no  wonder  to  find  a 
modern  man  like  Walt  Whitman,  who  has 
praised  the  joys  of  our  life  of  sense  so  fluently 
and  heartily,  singing  of  the  approach  of  death 
as  he  does  in  the  tender  dithyrambs  which 
occur  in  **The  Passage  to  India,"  musical 
words  of  faith  and  fearlessness  with  which 
these  pages  shall  be  embellished. 


and    Afterwards. 


63 


"DEATH  CAROL 

"  Come,  lovely  and  soothing  Death; 
Undulate  round  the  world;  serenely  arriving, 

arriving, 
In  the  day ;  in  the  night,  to  all,  to  each ; 
Sooner  or  later;  delicate  Death. 

"  Praised  be  the  fathomless  universe; 

For  life  and  joy ;  and  for  objects  and  knowl- 
edge curious; 

And  for  love;  sweet  love.  But  praise!  praise! 
praise ! 

For  the  sure-enwinding  arms  of  cool-enfolding 
Death. 

"  Dark  Mother,  always  gliding  near,  with  soft 
feet, 

Have  none  chanted  for  thee  a  chant  of  fullest 
welcome  ? 

Then  I  chant  it  for  thee — I  glorify  thee  above 
all; 

I  bring  thee  a  song  that  when  thou  must  in- 
deed come,  come  unfalteringly. 

**  Approach,  strong  Deliveress! 
When  it  is  so — when  thou  hast  taken  them, 


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Death 


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I  joyously  sing  the  dead, 
Lost  in  the  loving,  floating  ocean  of  thee, 
Laved  in  the  flood  of  thy  bliss,  O  Death. 

From  me  to  thee  glad  serenades, 

Dances    for  thee  1   propose,    saluting  thee— 

adornments  and  feastings  for  thee; 
And  the  sights  of  the  open  landscape,  and  the 

high-spread  sky,  are  fitting; 
And  life  and  the  fields,  and  the  huge  and 

thoughtful  night. 

The  night  in  silence;  under  many  a  star; 
The  ocean  shore,  and  the  husky  whispering 

wave  whose  voice  1  know; 
And  the  soul  turning  to  thee,  O  vast  and  well- 

veil'd  Death, 
And  the  body  gratefully  nestling  close  to  thee. 

Over  the  tree-tops  1  float  thee  a  song! 

Over  the  rising  and  sinking  waves — over  the 
myriad  fields,  and  the  prairies  wide: 

Over  the  dense  pack'd  cities  all,  and  the  teem- 
ing wharves  and  ways, 

I  float  this  carol  with  joy ;  with  joy  to  thee, 
O  Death!" 


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One  reflection  more  shall  >be  borrowed  from 
the  brilliant   pen    to    which?  I   lo^  tbe  most': 
striking  of  the  above  comments.    It  is  this:*  •  *• 

**I  feel  more  and  more  how  entirely  wide 
of  the  mark  (for  want  of  adopting  your  view 
of  the  illusionary  character  of  time,  space,  life, 
death,  etc.)  must  be,  and  must  remain,  our 
controversies  as  to  *  personality, '  and  the  per- 
sistence of  that  force  which  we  know  as 
identity.  Such  expressions  as  'immortality,' as 
we  understand  and  use  them,  do  not  merely 
fail  to  cover  the  ground;  they  are  but  half- 
thoughts — like  the  half  of  a  man  cloven  in  two 
— unless  complemented  by  corresponding  terms 
like  'in-natality.'  We  think  of  'eternal  life'  as 
something  which  begins  but  does  not  end;  but 
the  fallacy  of  this  becomes  evident  if  we  try  to 
think  conversely  of  something  '  eternal '  which 
ends  though  it  does  not  begin." 


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